DATING THE REIGNS OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL
The annals of the Assyrian Empire discovered by archaeologists record twelve years between the reigns of King Ahab of Israel and King Jehu of Israel. However, the Biblical record records fourteen years between the reigns of these kings with two kings between them "Ahaziah who ruled for two years and Jehoram who ruled twelve years (1 Kings 22:51; 2 Kings 3:1). What at first glance appears to be a discrepancy can be easily explained by historians. Ancient kingdoms had different ways of recording regnal years of their kings. The Assyrians and Babylonians credited the entire year when a king died to his reign, even if he died at the beginning of the year and his successor ruled eleven months of that year. The first year for a new Assyrian or Babylonian king would be designated his "accession year" and the new king's "year 1" did not begin until the first day of the following year. Historians call this method the "accession year system" or the "post-dating system."
However, in Egypt, the newly crowned Pharaoh recorded the actual year he came to the throne as "year 1" of his reign even though it was a partial year. This system of dating a reign is called the "non-accession-year system," or "ante-dating." The kings of the Northern Kingdom of Israel adopted the Egyptian system of dating a king's reign. Jeroboam I was the first king of the divided Northern Kingdom of Israel. He was a prince of the tribe of Ephraim and a descendant of Joseph son of Jacob/Israel and Joseph's Egyptian wife, Asenath. When King Solomon exiled Jeroboam, the refugee Ephraimite prince sought refuge in Egypt, so it is understandable that the Egyptian system is the one adopted by the Northern Kingdom's first king. The Kingdom of Judah, on the other hand, adopted the Assyrian system of only counting the first full year of a king's reign as "year 1". Therefore, the two-year difference between the Assyrian annals and the Israelite kings Ahab and Jehu are just one full year plus part of a year counted as the predecessor's year. The twelve years of Joram (Jehoram) were eleven full years plus the months from his predecessor's death, and so the Biblical account is not in error. By the Israelite system of counting reigns Ahaziah and Joram ruled for fourteen years, but according to the Assyrian system, which only counted the full years of a reign, they ruled for twelve years just as Shalmaneser's Assyrian annals record.
You may have noticed that in many lists of the reign of Rehoboam son of Solomon, King of Judah and Jeroboam I, King of Israel record the double dates of 931/930 BC. Sometimes double dates mean scholars cannot agree on the date, but in this case, the double dates have to do with the ancient dating system. Most western nations count their years from January 1 to the last day in December. This dating system was a gift of the Catholic Church when she established the beginning of the year on the 8th day after Jesus' birth "the day He was circumcised and received His human name. The Church determined that Christ was born on December the 25th and eight days later (counting as the ancients counted before the introduction of zero as a mathematical place-holder) gives the date January 1st (December 25 counts as day #1 and the 1st of January as day #8).(1) However, in ancient times different peoples had different systems for counting a year. Some civilizations counted from autumn to autumn, others from spring to spring, and still others from summer to summer. The ancient Egyptians ran their year from summer to summer without accounting for a leap year, so their calendar would lose a day every four years. Some cultures like the Israelites had both a liturgical calendar and a civil calendar. The civil calendar ran from the early fall to the next early fall, or from Tishri to Elul in the Hebrew calendar while the liturgical calendar, commanded by God in Exodus 12:1-2, extending from the early spring in Nisan (Abib/Aviv) to the next early spring in Adar in the Hebrew calendar. So between two different cultures, a recorded year could span two parts of our modern years. This ambiguity in dating existed even for the ancients when neighboring societies used a different dating system. For example, years in the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah began in different seasons of the year with a year in one kingdom being half a year in the other and therefore the beginning of the reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam I dated to both 931 and 930 BC since their reigning years overlapped each other.
A logical question might be, "How did historians and Bible scholars arrive at the dates 931-930 BC for the beginning of the reign of these two kings?" Discovered Egyptian records allow scholars to arrive at a good fix on the years of King Solomon's reign. Historians have a firm date of 664 BC for the beginning of the reign of Egypt's XXVI Dynasty Pharaoh. Before 664 BC Egyptian records fix the reign of Pharaoh Taharqa (Tirhakah) at twenty-six years; giving scholars the date of 690 BC. Egyptian annals record that Taharqa's two predecessors, Pharaohs Shebitku and Shabako, each reigned for twenty-five years, giving scholars the date of 715 BC. Preceding the reign of these kings was the reign of ten pharaohs of the XXII Dynasty; a dynasty founded by Pharaoh Shoshenq, called Shishak in the Bible. He is the pharaoh who invaded the Kingdom of Judah in the 5th year of Judahite King Rehoboam's reign (see 1 Kings 14:25-26; 2 Chronicles 12:1-9) as well as the neighboring kingdom of Israel. Pharaoh Shoshenq left behind a record of his victories in a triumphal relief at the great Egyptian Temple of Karnak and a victory stela at Silisila commemorating his military campaigns. Therefore, calculating the known years, the ten pharaohs of the XXII Dynasty reigned back to Shoshenq (Shishak) gives 227 years, or as scholars point out, more likely 230 years since the Egyptians counted only part of a year a king came to the throne as "year 1." In years that is a span (counting backward from the 715 BC determined from the reigns of Pharaohs Shebitku and Shabako) from 715 BC to 945 BC, we can determine the beginning of Shoshenq/Shishak's reign as pharaoh of Egypt.
In addition to knowing the date of the beginning of Shoshenq/Shishak's reign, this pharaoh recorded that his military campaign against Israel and Judah was in the 20th or 21st year of his reign (as recorded on his victory stela at Silisila dated to his 21st year). This evidence dates the campaign to 926/925 BC. The Bible records the Egyptian invasion occurred in the 5th year of Rehoboam's reign which gives a date of 931/930 BC for the death of King Solomon and the beginning of the reign of Rehoboam, King of Judah and Jeroboam I, King of Israel.
In much the same way, we can use Assyrian records to determine the dates of Israel's kings from the divided kingdom period. The dates derived from the Egyptian evidence agree with those derived from the Assyrian evidence to the extent that scholars feel confident dating King Solomon's reign to the mid-10th century BC and his son, King Rehoboam's "year 1" to 931/930 BC.
Endnote:
1. In about AD 525, Dionysius Exiguus, "Dennis the Short," the
Greek abbot of Rome, introduced a new method of dating events from the birth of
Jesus Christ instead of using the old system dating the years from the
beginning of the rule of a Roman Emperor or the founding of the city of Rome in
the pagan era. In dating time from Christ's birth, all dates after this pivot
point in history, Dennis suggested, should be dated "in the year of the Lord,"
in Latin "Anno Domini" abbreviated as "AD." From the year of Christ's birth
forward, the years would be dated year AD 1, year AD 2, etc. The years before
the birth of Christ would be counted backward from the year before Christ's
birth. There was no year "0" because the concept of zero as a mathematical
place-holder did not exist at that time. He also suggested dating the New Year
from the day Jesus was named and circumcised, eight days after His birth, which
the Church determined as December the 25th. He proposed counting
the 25th as day #1 and counting eight days to January 1st
as the date of Jesus' circumcision and the day of each new year in the Christian
calendar. Unfortunately for Dennis, his new calendar was not immediately
accepted. In the 8th century AD, the Venerable Bede, English priest
and scholar, adopted the new system and dated events recorded in his Ecclesiastical
History of the English People "Before Christ" and events after the birth of
Christ as "Anno Domini." Other 8th century chronicles began adopting
the system used by the Venerable Bede. Then, in the early 9th
century, King Charlemagne, crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in the year
800, began using the new system of dating in his imperial decrees. Eventually,
by the 10th century, the Latin Church fully accepted Dennis' system
of dating from the birth of Jesus Christ.
| Calendar year | Calendar year | Calendar year | |
| Previous King dies |
accession period new king's coronation |
Year 1 of new king | Year 2 |
| Calendar year | Calendar year | Calendar year | |
| Previous King dies |
Year 1 of new king new king's coronation |
Year 2 | Year 3 |
Archaeological evidence that supports the Biblical record:
Please refer to the Chart: "Comparison of the Reigns of the Kings of Judah and Israel" in the Charts/Old Testament section.
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2007; revised 2018 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.
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